Painting: Cats and moon

PAINTING: CATS AND MOON

Materials:

Acrylic Paint (I use the Liquitex Basics brand or Apple Barrel Craft Paint. For this tutorial, I used Apple Barrel craft paint because the set has that turquoise color! If you’re using Liquitex Brand, a similar color is “Bright Aqua Green”)

Paint Colors:

Red (Flag Red or Cad Red)

Orange (Jack O’ Lantern or Cad Orange)

Yellow (Cad Yellow)

Blue (Bright Blue or a Primary Blue)

Turquoise (Bimini Blue or Bright Aqua Green)

White (Titanium White)

Black (Mars Black)

16″ x 20″ Canvas or 8″ x 10″ canvas or whatever size you want!

Various Brush Sizes

9″ Paper plate to trace the moon

Water

Palette or paper plate for palette

Covered work space

Table top easel (I recommend using an easel for best perspective!)

Traceable (Optional):

If you’re doing the version with the two cats, there is no traceable but they are really very simple to paint! Use chalk to draw the outline of the heads and bodies first and also the tails. Then paint your chalk drawing in with black paint.

Trace an 9″ paper plate with a pencil. This circle represents the moon. 

Mix equal parts turquoise and white paint together. Then paint a turquoise-white ring around the moon. Use a 1″ flat brush to paint this ring. The ring is about 1″ thick

Paint a turquoise (not mixed with anything) ring around the first ring. Blend the two colors together using a wet brush.

Paint another ring with primary blue. Use a wet brush to blend the colors together.

Fill the rest of the canvas in (the corners) with primary blue. Keep the strokes going in a circle.

Use a 1/4″ flat brush to paint arc lines around the moon, with white paint. To make the white more translucent, dip it in the water more.

Paint the tree with black paint. To do this, use a 1″ angle brush. Practice your tree first on a separate paper until you feel comfortable painting it on the canvas.

Use a small round brush to paint the fall leaves. Use the tip of the brush to dot in red, yellow and orange leaves. You don’t have to clean your brush off between colors.

Draw the cat with pencil

Paint the cat in black using a small round brush. 

You can also choose to paint two cats

Using a small round brush and some light turquoise paint color, paint some swirls in the sky. Also, to paint stars, flick your paintbrush with white paint to create a splatter paint effect. 

Source: Step By Step Painting

Book Bricks

BOOK BRICKS

Pom Pom Bookmarkers

POM POM BOOKMARKERS

Supplies:

– yarn

– scissors

*Before you start, cut an 8-10 inch piece of yarn and a 15 inch piece of yarn and set it aside. You will need these lengths in later steps.

To start, hold the end of the yarn in your hand, and begin wrapping the yarn around your fingers – snug but not too tight. We recommend wrapping the yarn 90 times.

Cut the yarn after 90 wraps, and carefully slide it off your fingers. Lay it down over the 8-10 inch piece of yarn. Tightly tie a knot around the middle of the 90 loops.

To add the yarn ball bookmark ‘tail’, use the 15-inch piece of yarn, tie it around the same string you used to tie the 90 loops together, as seen in the pictures above.

At this point, your yarn ball bookmark should look like the picture above.

Next, holding the ball on it’s side, slide your scissors through the yarn loops and start cutting. Instant fluffy yarn!

This is what your pom pom will look like — it will start to resemble a ball, but is in dire need of a haircut!

Start snipping! {WARNING: be careful NOT to cut off the bookmark tail! Hold it out of the way while you snip.} With this step, you need to cut the yarn pom pom into the shape of a ball. Continue to turn and snip the yarn, looking at the ball from different angles while doing so. Keep rounding it off until you are pleased with the shape. This step does take practice, and you will improve with each ball you make.

Voila! Your pom pom ball will appear! And your yarn ball bookmark is officially done!

Source: Design Mom

Soap Dishes

SOAP DISHES

Printing On Wood

PRINTING ON WOOD

How to Print Pictures on Wood

1. Cut a few sheets of wax paper to the size of a standard piece of printer paper

2. Find a smooth, light coloured piece of wood. Actually find a few so you have some to practice on.

Find a high resolution image you like. Or make your own. The Graphics Fairy is a great place to start for copyright free, high resolution images.

3. Once you have an image you like, reverse it using whatever photo program you have on your computer.  If you’re not sure how to do that just Google it.

4. Put a sheet of your waxed paper into the printer and click print.

5. As the waxed paper comes out of the printer, gently guide it. You have to be careful it doesn’t roll under itself or touch itself in any other way because it will smear the ink.

6. Put your image exactly where you want it on the wood. Remember … this can be any unfinished wood. A bench, table, box, or anything!

Once you place your image you can’t move it.  Do not move it.  It will smudge. You will be sad.  Then you will cry and it will smudge some more.

7. Holding the transfer tight to the wood, and working quickly, swipe the edge of a credit card across the image. This pushes the ink from the waxed paper down into the wood, which absorbs it.

Don’t be wimpy about this.  Push hard, but not so hard that you rip the waxed paper.  You can gently lift the paper to see if it’s transferring well.  If you notice spots that haven’t transferred, rub it some more with the credit card, this time burnishing it.

8. When you’re pretty sure that you’ve transferred as much ink as possible lift off your waxed paper and get ready to call someone. Because that’s the first thing you’re going to want to do because this method works so well.

You’ll be stunned.

You’ll naturally want other people to be stunned. It’s a DIYer thing.

I tried a few images just because it was so fun.

Like I said earlier you can use this technique on any smooth, unfinished wood like old crates, tables, or chairs. For anything that’s going to have wear and tear, just remember to spray it with a a clear matte finish after you do the print. Any wood sealer will protect it.

If you don’t have a table, chair or dresser you want to print on, you can just find a nice old board and prop it against the wall, or hang it.

Quick Reference Directions:
Waxed Paper Transfer

1. Cut sheets of waxed paper to the size of computer paper.

2.  Print your image onto the waxed paper with any Inkjet printer. (must reverse image first using whatever photo program you have) In answer to some of your comments, no, it doesn’t matter which side you print on. Both sides of waxed paper are waxed.

3.  Carefully place the image on your wood (wet side down) and then rub over it with a credit card.

4.  Removed waxed paper and the ink is now transferred to the wood.

5.  Seal with a matte spray wood sealer if you like.

TIPS

• Use smooth wood.  Rough barn board won’t work, but smooth barn board will.
• Darker colours on lighter wood works best.
• Dampening the wood a bit with a sponge will make the transfer darker, but it might blur and smudge if you’re not extremely careful.
• If the waxed paper won’t feed through your printer, tape it to a piece of regular printer paper before feeding it into your printer.
• Some readers have also had success by using the slippery side of freezer paper so you can try that.

I made my piece of printed wood into a rustic planter.  Read how to make your own in this post. 

NOTE: ONLY USE INKJET PRINTERS, NOT LASER PRINTERS.

Source: The Art Of Doing Stuff

Mini Notebooks

MINI NOTEBOOKS

Materials: 

• Cereal box (1 cereal box makes 2 notebooks. You can also use cardboard, cardstock or gift boxes)

• Paper for the inside pages (I used 20 pieces of 8.5" x 11" computer paper, but you can also use lined or graph paper)

• A piece of decorative paper (to cover the spine)

• Scissors 

• Ruler

• Pen

• Glue stick, tape runner or double-sided tape

• Needle and embroidery floss 

• Button

 Steps: 

1. • Cut out the cereal box to create the cover for your notebook. I cut a 5.5" x 8" piece for mine, but you can make it as small or large as you wish.
2. • Fold it in half so that the blank side is facing out. 
3. • Run embroidery floss through the needle and sew on the button to the front of the notebook. Leave about 20" of the thread hanging. This will be used to wrap around the notebook to close.
4. • To cover the images of the cereal box, apply glue or tape to the inside of the notebook (make sure you get the corners!) and place a piece of paper on top to attach. Cut around the edges to remove any excess paper.
5. • Grab your paper for the inside pages and trim them down so they are slightly smaller than the notebook (about 1/4" shorter on all sides). 
6. • With the needle and embroidery floss, stitch the paper to the notebook down the spine. 
7. • Apply glue or tape to your decorative paper and attach it to the spine of the notebook. 
8. • Optional: For a more finished look, cut rounded corners on all four edges of the notebook.

Source: Creme De La Craft